Fox News hosts ramp up 'deep state' conspiracies
As the network escalates its attacks on the FBI, mainstream conservatives say it is endangering U.S. institutions.
By JASON SCHWARTZ 01/26/2018 05:20 PM EST
As Fox News opinion hosts have grown increasingly conspiratorial in the past week — going to ever-greater lengths to defend President Donald Trump — other conservative commentators are expressing alarm at what they describe as a rising threat to both their movement and the country.
Those concerns seemed to come to a head Thursday night, when Fox host Sean Hannity was widely mocked for his logic-bending dismissal of The New York Times’ report that Trump had sought to fire special counsel Robert Mueller. But Hannity’s coverage was just part of a wider trend, observers say. For the past week, Fox News opinion hosts have seized on claims by some Republican lawmakers about a “secret society” at the FBI and “deep state actors” to fashion unproven narratives designed to protect Trump and delegitimize Mueller.
On Wednesday night, Hannity told viewers, “The constitutional violations are severe and historically unprecedented in this country. You have deep state actors using and abusing the powerful tools of intelligence we give them to protect this country.”
On Tuesday, Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs said, “It may be time to declare war outright against the deep state and clear out the rot in the upper levels of the FBI and the Justice Department.”
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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/26/fox-news-deep-state-conspiracies-372856
